We examine the incentives of regions in a country to unite or toseparate. We find that smaller regions have greater incentives tounite, relative to larger regions. We show, however, that on thewhole, majority voting on separation and union generates excessiveincentives to separate. This leads us...

There is general agreement at present that the Southern African Development Community needs to re-imagine itself and breathe new life into its somewhat moribund structure. The European Union is often presented as the textbook example to be followed by other regional associations - a rules-based,...

The conventional wisdom is that government decentralization promotes policy innovation because it allows for several simultaneous experiments by local governments. However, there is also a learning externality because successful policy experiments provide useful information to all governments....

We explore the economic implications of the possible accession of Croatia to the European Union. We focus on two main changes associated with the EU-membership: accession to the internal European Market and institutional reforms in Croatia triggered by the EU-membership. consumption per capita...

We explore the economic implications of the possible accession of Croatia to the European Union. We focus on two main changes associated with the EU-membership: accession to the internal European Market and institutional reforms in Croatia triggered by the EU-membership. consumption per capita...

This paper uses computational techniques to assess whether or not various propositions that have been advanced as plausible in the literature on regional trade agreements may actually hold. The idea is to make probabilistic statements as to whether propositions of interest might hold, rather...

This paper presents one channel through which the creation of a Preferential Trading Arrangement (PTA) can undermine multilateral trade liberalization. Using a modified Meade model, it is shown how a PTA shrinks the export sectors in the excluded countries. This in turn leads to an expansion of...

This study seeks to investigate empirically the directional impacts of NTMs on intra-ASEAN exports given that not all NTMs pose constraints to trade. Though NTMs are found to be diverse and intense for specific bilateral pairs, there is no empirical evidence of adverse impacts of NTMs on...

During the past several years, the United States has concluded a substantial number of bilateral and regional free trade agreements (hereinafter “FTAs”), largely with developing countries. Each of those FTAs includes substantial commitments in the field of intellectual property rights (IPRs)...

As the Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) prepares to debate a draft trade policy (the first in the young nation’s history) in the next few months, this is as good a time as any to review the broader economic development context in which this policy was framed and to reviews...